CHAPTER IV. THE AGE OF CHAUCER (1350-1400)I was wery, forwandred, and went me to reste
Undur a brod banke, bi a bourne^78 side;
And as I lay and lened, and loked on the watres,
I slumbred in a slepyng—hit swyed^79 so murie....JOHN WYCLIF (1324?-1384)
Wyclif, as a man, is by far the most powerful English fig-
ure of the fourteenth century. The immense influence of his
preaching in the native tongue, and the power of his Lollards
to stir the souls of the common folk, are too well known his-
torically to need repetition. Though a university man and a
profound scholar, he sides with Langland, and his interests
are with the people rather than with the privileged classes,
for whom Chaucer writes. His great work, which earned him
his title of "father of English prose," is the translation of the
Bible. Wyclif himself translated the gospels, and much more
of the New Testament; the rest was finished by his followers,
especially by Nicholas of Hereford. These translations were
made from the Latin Vulgate, not from the original Greek and
Hebrew, and the whole work was revised in 1388 by John
Purvey, a disciple of Wyclif. It is impossible to overestimate
the influence of this work, both on our English prose and on
the lives of the English people.
Though Wyclif’s works are now unread, except by occa-
sional scholars, he still occupies a very high place in our liter-
ature. His translation of the Bible was slowly copied all over
England, and so fixed a national standard of English prose
to replace the various dialects. Portions of this translation,
in the form of favorite passages from Scripture, were copied
by thousands, and for the first time in our history a standard
(^78) brook.
(^79) sounded.